Hollywood
by xoxo Juniebug
Summary: Frontier. It's Takuya's seventeenth birthday, so Izumi buys, I mean, makes him a gift. Takumi fluff ensues! iPod Shuffle Challenge: Installment #1 -complete, for now-
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: iPod Shuffle Challenge: First Installment aka "The Scrapbook"  
Pairing:** Takuya x Izumi  
**Song:** Jonas Brothers - Hollywood  
(that's where I got the name of this story, bc in reality this story doesnt have anything to do with hollywood. its part of the rules of the challenge lol)

this story is something i did for myself..i made up the rules of the iPod Shuffle Challenge so if some parts sound like crap ignore it because i probably BS'd that part of the story so i could concentrate on something more important. just an fyi.

* * *

_"You can try to break us, and make us fall apart, but the fires in our hearts reminisce on memories because we're gone."  
_The Jonas Brothers - Hollywood

**The Scrapbook Prologue  
**

"Finally done!" Izumi flattened out the last strip of Scotch tape across the brown-paper-bag colored package and stood up to admire her fabulous work. She had had breakfast, taken a shower (along with the primping that comes with it), and the rays of morning sunlight were peeking through her translucent window curtains. Feeling fresh and accomplished, she scooped the package up in her arms and left her bedroom.

"Frick, better not forget my beanie." she returned to the room and retrieved her signature purple beanie, her favorite headgear. It was in surprisingly good shape despite having it for over five years. Hopefully, wearing it would add to the nostalgic effect that she was going for when Takuya took a look at the scrapbook. She closed the door softly and used her socks as an accelerator to slide down the hall toward the staircase.

"Mom? Mom! I'm going out!" she called as she flew down the stairs. Her denim blue messenger bag bumped irritatingly on the backs of her bare legs.

"Okay, hun," her mother poked her head out of the master bedroom and Izumi slipped into her dark-brown clogs. "By the way…" Izumi slid the door open. "…would you mind picking up some vegetables for me on your way home?"

"Sure thing, Mom. Bye!" Izumi darted through the front door and whipped it closed. Cradling the package in one hand and adjusting the beanie with the other, she skipped down the porch steps two at a time. The front door reopened with a creak behind her and Izumi looked back.

"Silly girl, what's the big rush? You didn't even hear what vegetables I wanted! And you didn't get the money to buy them!" Ms. Orimoto put her hand on her hip and wagged a finger.

After slapping her forehead in a 'Duh!' moment, Izumi gently placed the package on the bottom step and sprinted for the kitchen. As she charged past her mother, she overheard her muttering something about self-absorbed teenagers. Psh. _Clomp, clomp_ went her shoes against the wooden floor. She grabbed the money off the kitchen table, threw it haphazardly into her bag, and ran back to her very confused mother.

"'K, what do I need to get?" she said. She jogged in place, looking down at her mother expectantly.

Mrs. Orimoto scratched her head. "Is there something that you're late for? I don't understand the big hurry."

"I'm not late, I'm just excited. It's Takuya's birthday today and since he isn't having an official party, I'm bringing him his present now." She said, grinning excitedly.

"Ahh, I see. Is it August already? Well, all right then, you have fun. But more importantly, be safe…and don't do anything you wouldn't want _me_ to find out about." Mrs. Orimoto warned.

"Of course, Mom." Izumi nodded obediently. "By the way, I think we're out of onions. What else do we need?"

"Just tomatoes and onions, then." Ms. Orimoto shuffled to Izumi in her fluffy bedroom slippers to give her a good-bye kiss. Izumi had to bend down for her 4-inches-shorter mother to reach her, for she resembled her dad, who was Italian, more than her mom, who is Japanese.

"'K bye, Mom. _Ti voglio bene_."

"Love you too." Ms. Orimoto shut the door and once again, Izumi flew down the porch steps, picked the package up, and ran out onto the Orimoto's expansive, but beautiful front yard. Actually, it was more of a garden, for it was filled with so many different types of flowers that even Izumi couldn't name them all. As she ran, she was careful to stay on the concrete path that ran straight through the garden and _not _trip and fall into the two small in-ground ponds that ran parallel to it. She reached the end of the path, opened the wooden gate, and slipped through it, closing and locking it behind her.

Izumi swiftly passed through the streets of the suburban neighborhood. Takuya's house was only a five minute walk from hers', since her mother had given her the generous option of picking the neighborhood that she liked best from a list of seven potentials after her parents had divorced three years ago. Of course she had picked the one in walking distance from her friends without a second thought, a decision that she was absolutely loving right now. Izumi hadn't told Takuya she was coming, so even if Takuya was not home it wasn't like she had wasted a huge chunk of time getting there. Or money. Tokyo bus prices were ridiculous.

_Just another corner……aaaand……there._ Izumi slowed to a stop as she came up to the Kanbara home. It was a shut wooden gate identical to hers and the only distinguishing factor was a freshly-scrubbed gold plate drilled into the stone fence with KANBARA engraved onto it, just like the other ones in the neighborhood. Underneath it, the names of all family members were engraved in a smaller font: Mr. and Mrs. Kanbara, Takuya Kanbara, Saruchi Kanbara, and Shinya Kanbara. Izumi tried opening the gate, wrapping her fingers around the sturdy wooden rod. She tugged and, as expected, it slid open easily, revealing a traditional Japanese house. Izumi shut the gate behind her and began to walk to the front door. The Kanbara yard was not as elaborate as the Orimoto's; there was a gray cobblestone walkway, there was a tree, there was a tire swing, and typically, there was a stray soccer ball as well, half-buried in the earth, forgotten by the front steps. All in all, it was a simple but functional environment.

Izumi's eyes glazed over all of it as she quickly crossed the yard, took the porch steps two at a time, then rang the doorbell. When nobody came after two minutes, Izumi pressed the doorbell again. _Takuya better be home._

* * *

**Ti voglio bene - I love you (platonic)**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **FIRST WARNING; this fic has nothing to do with the title of the story! It was a rule of the challenge that the title had to be the song title. so there you go.

Now that i've said that..here is the first (and last) chapter of **Hollywood/"The Scrapbook".**

**disclaimer: **i dont own digimon or the song Hollywood  
the plot, saruchi kanbara, maya hitsuji, and "The Little 3" (c) me  
teddy cheong (c) jo c. (friend)

* * *

_"You can try to break us, and make us fall apart, but the fires in our hearts reminisce on memories because we're gone."  
_**The Jonas Brothers - Hollywood**

**- The Scrapbook -**

Within five seconds, the door creaked slowly open, and Izumi smiled at the boy in front of her. She received a why-are-you-here frown in return. Apart from the streaks of maroon that highlighted his hair and the duller light in his eyes, Shinya Kanbara was a 2-year-younger version of his older brother, in physical appearance that is. Shinya looked up at Izumi without any measure of surprise on his face.

"Hi. Saruchi isn't home." he said, beginning to shut the door, but Izumi put her shoe in the door before he could close it. Shinya glanced at her shoe, back up at her, and then scowled. '_What a little brat_,' Izumi thought, '_He's really grown to be a spoiled kid._'

"Morning Shinya, I'm not here to see Saruchi, actually. I'm here for the other twin. Is he home?" Izumi was having difficulty keeping her tone pleasant.

"Yeah." Shinya tried to push the door against her shoe, irritated at being interrupted in the middle of whatever he does on the computer, but it didn't budge and Izumi bent down to his eye-level. Shinya had grown up into such a pest; how dare he block her out of the house? As far as Izumi could remember, she had never given him a reason for him to act so unwelcoming towards her. As she squinted at the uncaring russet eyes in front of her, she briefly wondered how Tommy and Maya, the sweetest kids on the planet, could possibly be best friends with him.

"You're really rude, you know that? Takuya's birthday is today – I wouldn't be surprised if this is news to _you_ – and I came here to give him a present. So that is exactly what I'm going to do whether you want me here or not. Now _excuse me._"

"He hasn't come out of his room yet today. I think he's still sleeping. You would just be wasting your time."

"I'll wake him up." Shinya raised an eyebrow at her and had another try at door. "Shinya, I said move!"

Shinya crossed his arms and slid the door fully open, shifting out of the way so she could pass. Izumi strode past him and headed straight for the stairs, too irritated to say hi to the two people responsible for Shinya's existence. Behind her, Shinya rolled his eyes and went back to doing whatever secret evil things he did on a Saturday morning, muttering darkly.

As Izumi slowly ascended the stairs, she took deep, calming breaths, determined to not let a fifteen year old baby spoil her mood. Takuya was going to absolutely love her gift. She had spent two days straight working on it, not counting the hours spent tracking down the others for old pictures and mementos to add to her collection. And may the Gods bless Saruchi Kanbara, Takuya's younger twin sister, who had thought Izumi's scrapbook was a great idea and had snuck into Takuya's room to retrieve a ton of valuable and downright hysterical pictures while giving Izumi a running commentary ("Eww, he keeps his dirty clothes under his bed!" "Gross." "Ha, remember when we got him and Kouichi to wear dresses? Well somebody took pictures! Looks like it was Kouji…I see a bit of his bandana." "Awesome! Can I have them?" "Of course. Just make sure you handle them with gloves." "Why?" "They were under his bed."). And then last night, Saruchi, Kouichi, and JP had come over to help with the finishing touches so all Izumi had to do in the morning was wrap it and label it. All in all, a whole lot of time and a whole lot of effort had been put into this project, so with a solid good feeling in her heart, she felt confident that the scrapbook was perfection.

She rapped her knuckles against Takuya's bedroom door. It had a picture of a soccer ball on it. "Takuya? Takuya, are you there? It's Izumi."

Cue a yelp and a heavy thud.

"What the hell?! What happened? Are you okay?!"

"Mmmpfth – yeah – crap, crap, crap, I'm – SHIT –" Then a loud SLAM against the door. Izumi jumped. What the hell was that? It sounded like a large animal had just been flung against the door. Izumi tried to open the door, and it opened a tiny crack before refusing to budge.

"Takuya, is your room so messy that the door can't open?" Izumi asked incredulously, leaning her weight against the door, which stubbornly refused to budge. "Come move whatever's blocking the door and help me."

"No, help _me_! My nose is bleeding. Oh, and I'm the one blocking the door. Sorry, I'll move." He sounded as if he was sitting right behind it. He scooted his butt away and Izumi slipped in. The room wasn't as messy as she had thought it would be except for the occasional random pile of junk. In fact, it looked like it had just been cleaned. She shut the door behind her and looked down at Takuya, who looked a ghastly sight with blood streaming in between his fingers, which were trying to halt the flow, and another hand groping his throbbing toe. He had just woken up, so his brown hair was messier than usual and he was half-naked, wearing only gray boxers and one sock. Yes, one sock. And it was on backwards. He looked a hot mess, emphasis on the hot and the mess.

"Good morning." He said before chuckling at Izumi's horrified face.

"Oh, _Dio_! How could you be laughing at a time like this? You're a mess! Let me get you a towel or something. Just hold on…" She dropped the scrapbook at Takuya's bruised feet and grabbed a black shirt out of his laundry hamper. She handed it to Takuya. He put it up to his nose while slumping against the wall and raising his head like his mother told him.

"It's a wonder that you're one of the best soccer players on the team. You're such a klutz," she said, and tsked.

"Who do you think I am? JP? I'm not a klutz! It's your fault, for waking me up so suddenly that I… er…"

"Tripped over your own feet and fell face-first into the door?" Takuya stayed silent. "Knew it!"

"Ugh…why are you here, anyway? Or did you just want to see me crack my skull?" His voice sounded muffled through the shirt, as if he had a cold.

She put her hands on her hips. "Of course I wanted to see you crack your skull, because it's my number one goal in life to see someone bleed to _death_."

"You're so melodramatic. I'm not going to die. But, seriously." He gestured at the wrapped package, temporarily forgotten, lying on the floor in front of him with his foot. "What's tha-" Takuya was hit with a stroke of realization. "Damn, is that for my birthday?"

"For once in your life, you're right!" Izumi picked up the package and took a seat ext to him. Takuya eyed the package with excitement blazing in his milk-chocolate brown eyes.

Izumi always gave him the best presents; the year before, his sixteenth birthday, it had been a limited-edition video game that came out two days before his birthday. Takuya still loved video games after all these years, so he had almost peed himself when he opened the box. To this day, he had no idea how Izumi had gotten her hands on one without having to go through a week of camping outside the local Radio Shack. Then, the year before that, she had _accidentally_ given him his first kiss in front of the other Chosen Children _and _their families _and_ at least fifty people. (It's a long and twisted story to be told another day) At the time he had shrugged the incident off as a "mistake" and as "meaningless" to all who approached him with teasing words, and he ignored Izumi's desperate apologies for several days.

Anyway, lately he had been ranting about a new computer game, _Road Rage III: Diablo's Revenge _to anybody who would listen, and right now he would bet one-hundred dollars that it was going to be one of the things in this present. He would've bought it himself, but he had better things to spend his money on, and his parents didn't buy it, because they had never approved of his video game habit.

"Here, take it." Izumi put the box in his lap and looked at him expectantly. Takuya picked it up, held it to his ear, and shook it around, but no sound came from inside. He put it on the ground in between him and Izumi and tapped it.

"Spare me the theatrics, Takuya. Just open it and see what it is for yourself."

"I was trying to savor the moment! Man, Izu-chan is being so mean to me today, and it's my _birthday_." Takuya whined and tried to put on a pathetic pout for "Izu-chan". Of course, the pout did not work very well because of the soiled cloth hiding half of his face. Izumi, grinning cheekily, pinched his elbow. "All right, all right, I'll open it now. …Err…" he looked at the package, then at his hand, then at Izumi, then at the package again.

Izumi blinked. "Err...what now?" She was a little afraid of the answer.

"A little handicapped here. Open it for me?"

"No way, it's your birthday present, you have to open it! Besides, I just wrapped this not too long ago. I'm not going to ruin my hard work for nothing."

"Please?" Takuya begged, batting his long eyelashes at her. _Freaking cute. _Izumi's cheeks heated and she shoved the box back to him and refused to meet his eyes.

"Just unwrap it with your free hand while I hold it," she demanded.

"Okay." Takuya complied without a second thought; after all, he'd gotten the reaction he wanted. He liked to make her blush; he thought she looked cute. So, slowly, lazily, he hooked a finger underneath a strip of white ribbon and tugged hard. The ribbon was ripped into two pieces before settling onto the package again. Takuya held one end and pulled, and the ribbon, now one long strand, unraveled from the box. He held it up in the air and pretended to inspect it – he put on his thinking face for Izumi's benefit - then flung it to the floor.

"You're an asshole, Takuya. I would've beaten you up by now if you weren't bleeding and it wasn't your birthday." Izumi muttered.

"Actually…I think the bleeding's stopped." Takuya slowly lowered the cloth to double-check and to his relief, he didn't feel anything dripping out. "Sorry to keep you waiting, buuut…" He smirked. Izumi scowled. "…buuut I'm going to wash my face and rinse my mouth a little since it tastes like metal after all that blood." Izumi crinkled her nose.

"Gross. Just hurry back so we can _finally_ open this and you can get dressed. If you hurry extra-fast, I'll take you out for breakfast somewhere."

"Ok, mommy." Takuya sang, before grinning widely at her and slipped out of the door, leaving it open a crack behind him. That girl was always so impatient, but it made messing with her all the more entertaining.

* * *

"I give major props to the guy who invited soap."

With his face all cleaned up, Takuya was cheerful as he strode into his bedroom. He tossed the bloodstained black shirt into the laundry hamper on his way over to Izumi, who looked up when he came in. Izumi, sitting cross-legged on the bottom bunk of his bed, was leaning against the wall with his present in her lap and her cell-phone up to her face. However, instead of texting, Izumi was still staring at him as he walked over. She bit her bottom lip as she surveyed his body. _Since when did he get…muscles? _ Takuya began to feel a little self-conscious.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Did I miss a spot?" Takuya felt his face and Izumi's head snapped back to her cell-phone determinedly. Her cheeks flushed pink.

"No. Just…can you, like, putonsomeclothesorsomething?"

Takuya blushed, grinned, and apologized. Then, he went to his closet and grabbed a pair of khakis and a black short-sleeved dress shirt. He quickly pulled them on then sat on the bottom bunk of his bunk bed in front of Izumi, who scooted away from the wall to sit next to him.

"Takuya Kanbara at your service, one hundred percent dressed!"

"Finally. Now shut up, take this, and just OPEN it," Izumi said irritably, handing him his barely-opened gift. "I know you're dying inside to open it so stop pretending you're not."

"Fine, fine." He began to open the present in the same painfully slow manner as before. Izumi punched him in the back.

"Just open it like a normal person, slow poke."

"What if I'm the kind of normal person who likes to open his gifts slowly?" he asked jokingly. Nevertheless, he tore into the gift with ferocious gusto. Brown wrapping paper flew through the air as he ripped pieces off, layer by layer. What kind of freak put 5 layers of wrapping paper on a gift, anyway? Parts of the inner layers were taped together with _duct tape _instead of the regular Scotch. Izumi had probably thought that wrapping it with five layers would heighten his suspense. _Well then, I guess it worked, _he thought grudgingly as he jabbed a fingernail underneath a piece of the sticky duct tape.

"I feel like I'm going through the layers of the earth here," he complained and the warrior of wind's lips curled evilly. He made a face and stuck his tongue out at her.

"Immature," she said.

"Evil," he retaliated. "Oh wait, I have an idea."

Izumi watched in curiosity as he got up, went to his desk and grabbed a scissors. "Just be careful while you open it," she said as Takuya sat down and began to poke a hole. "You might rip the present. It's scissors-sensitive."

He assured her that he would be careful and true to his word, he snipped through the remaining layers extra-meticulously until a large spiral notebook/binder thing was on his lap instead of a wrapped present. When closed, it was as long as his lap - from his thighs to his knees - and was as wide as them too. It was very thick, so it seemed like it was a long book, but that was due to the construction paper, which poked out of the side of the front and back cover. The front cover was black, save for a few red stars that looked drawn in and a taped-on picture of him and Saruchi at Shinya's eighth birthday party five years ago just after he had returned from the digital world. Takuya had no idea what to make of it. He picked it up, looked underneath.

"Umm." He began, hesitantly. "…what is this?"

Definitely not _Road Rage III_!

"Look inside and see!"

_Aha, so she must have hidden it in this binder somehow_. After all, in the movies people were always hiding things in books by cutting an indentation into the pages. He flipped open the front cover, revealing a block of handwriting written on black construction paper in a thin purple glitter pen.

"So, my first seventeenth birthday present involves purple glitter. Beautiful." he muttered sarcastically, more to himself than to Izumi, but unfortunately she heard him.

Izumi felt hurt. "You haven't even read it, Takuya! It seems kind of lame right now but it gets better," she promised.

"Whatever you say," Takuya said skeptically. He hoped that he wouldn't have to disappoint her too much as he took a closer look at the glittery page in front of him. _How can she expect me to read that? _Takuya leaned forward so his nose almost touched the paper.

"I can't read the purple against the black."

"Really?" Izumi looked at it. "Damn. I guess the color faded as it dried." She reached out and ripped that piece off the spiral backbone without a second thought, then explained that all that had been written on it was that it was a scrapbook from the past five years. However, Takuya wasn't listening; instead, his fingers were tracing the outlines of the people pictured on high-quality 8.5 x 11 photo paper.

"Me, you, Kouji, Tommy, Kouichi, and JP at the hospital," he breathed incredulously. The picture was beautiful: Kouichi had tears in his eyes as he hugged Kouji, whose back was facing the camera. Meanwhile the other four cried surrounded them, crying joyously. It looked so real, like the picture was popping out at him. "How on earth did you get a picture of this?"

"Kouichi's mom."

"Wow! I don't remember seeing her there..."

"She was standing by the door, apparently. Weird, huh? We didn't even notice her there."

"Beyond weird. Wow…" Takuya muttered again. "So this is basically a book filled with pictures of everyone?"

"That's what scrapbooks are, the last time I checked."

"So, why give it to me? I mean, isn't this is the sort of thing that should belong to everybody?" Takuya asked as he flipped the page, revealing another page, titled "Takuya & The Little 3 Part 1".

"You're right, but I felt that you should have it because you've always been the glue that keeps us all together as one group. Our little moronic leader aka Taki-kun," Izumi ruffled his soft hair. He turned to look at her with an eyebrow raised.

"Well then, if I'm the moronic leader, then you must be the sweet and innocent widdle princess Izu-chan!"

Izumi grinned and blushed. "Why, thank you."

Takuya laughed cheerfully and patted her head. "I was being sarcastic, m'lady." Izumi thwacked him again.

"Just admire your present!"

Takuya leafed through the scrapbook while Izumi alternated between playing games on her phone and secretly watching Takuya when he wasn't looking. Out of nowhere, Takuya burst into a snicker-fit and Izumi asked what was so funny, out of curiosity.

"Remember the carnival?" Takuya smiled and put his finger on a picture. It was labeled "Summer Festival, Thirteen Years Old" in Izumi's loopy handwriting. It featured Izumi, Kouichi, Saruchi, and JP grinning happily with their arms around each other. They looked as if they were having the time of their lives despite the fact that all five of them were sopping wet with water dripping from their clothes. Meanwhile Takuya and Teddy, Izumi and Saruchi's other best girl friend, were sitting in the background, equally wet, but looking very disgruntled and a little disgusted and Kouji was nowhere to be seen.

Izumi laughed out loud. "Of course," she said as she sat up from her lying position. "It was disaster times ten. I never forgot the picture of Kouji-barf all over you guys. It's completely gross but totally classic."

"I agree. Who'd have thought that Kouji, of all people, has such a weak stomach? I remember now…he was hurling his guts out when this was taken." his thoughtful eyes looked up as he remembered. "But it would've been two times as funny if someone _else_ had been in my position. Like JP. I wanted to sit with you guys, but _nooooo, _JP's life's dream was to sit in the front of a roller coaster, and Teddy claimed she got hives whenever JP was around."

"Get over it, loser," Izumi said in between giggles; after all these years, Teddy still disliked JP. "Keep looking."

Takuya returned his gaze back to the scrapbook. His back was bent over so he could look more closely at the pictures, much to Izumi's satisfaction. She _knew_ he would like it. Sometimes he would look at a picture and smile to himself. Izumi would smile too, because of his adorable dimples. He was _so _cute! Scratch that, he was just really hot thanks to years of working out and playing soccer, an intense work-out in and of itself. But for some reason, he had never had a steady girlfriend, just random dates with random chicks who looked up to him as a god because of his skill on the field. Izumi hated them: they were always the bitchy cheerleader-type who switched boyfriends more often than they missed their homework, and their boyfriends _had_ to be on a Varsity sports team and undeniably hot. She spent a lot of time wondering why Takuya, your everyday teenage boy with too much testosterone, never stuck with most of them for more than one day.

She didn't mind, of course.

"The hell? Why is this in here?" Takuya asked, pulling Izumi out of her dreams.

"What?"

Takuya flinched, glanced at her, and then looked back at the picture. "Oh, it's nothing."

He sounded suspicious and guilty. Izumi put a hand on the scrapbook to prevent him from turning the page.

"Err, you don't want to see it."

"See what?" She looked over his shoulder to get a better look. It was a picture of Takuya and Fukuwara May, a sweet-looking, pixie-faced girl with shiny black hair streaked with brown who wore azure-colored contacts. The picture was only taken four months ago at Izumi's seventeenth birthday party; Takuya was making a dumb face at the camera. May's head was on Takuya's shoulder and she was blushing, yet smiling, and her arms were wrapped around Takuya's waist from behind like a skinny boa constrictor.

Fukuwara May. Known to the Chosen Children for being of the few exceptions to Takuya's habit of not sticking with girls for more than one day and for being, to put it frankly, a fucking bitch.

"I said you wouldn't want to see it." Takuya muttered. Izumi looked like she had just swallowed a lemon.

"I hate that girl."

"Me too. She was a bitch."

"A total bitch." Izumi agreed.

Takuya's hands clenched into fists. "Why is it even in here?"

"Some of the others helped me with this, maybe they put it in...Maybe…"Izumi trailed off.

"No! They would never do that. They hate her too," Takuya said firmly. Then the brunette noticed something odd – it wasn't taped down like the other pictures. He ran his hand across the picture experimentally and it moved under his touch.

"You see? It wasn't taped down. Someone must have forgotten to take it out," he said. Izumi nodded.

Together sat there in silence, frowning at the picture. Takuya shuddered inwardly. _How could I possibly have been her boyfriend?_ He saw Izumi wipe her cheek out of the corner of his eye and instantly felt for her. For some reason Izumi had always hated that girl right from the start, and for some reason, after it was all said and done, she had been affected more than the others. Takuya, feeling as if the entire fiasco - and Izumi's hurt feelings, by association - was his fault, still felt terrible.

"Don't cry," he said. He put his arm around her small waist and pulled her towards him. Izumi leaned into his shoulder but avoided eye contact.

"Shut up. I was _not_ crying. Something was in my eye," she sniffed. He scoffed.

"Whatever you say," he said. His breath tickled her ear and butterflies fluttered restlessly in her stomach. "Hey, ever hear the saying 'it's not what they take away from you that counts, it's what you have left'?"

"No." she said, her lip stuck out stubbornly. There was no good side to Fukuwara May and she didn't want to be told otherwise.

"Even though she almost ruined everything and turned everybody against each other, she also made us realize how strong the bond between us is."

She thought about it for a little, and then she muttered, "Well, I guess that is true." _Leave it up to my Takuya to turn the spawn of the devil into a blessing…wait what? _My _Takuya? What are you, Izumi, some obsessed fan girl? _She shook her head to free the thought, tickling Takuya's solid arm.

"They can try to break us and make us fall apart, but the fires in our hearts will reminisce on memories when they're gone." Takuya said after a moment.

"That sounded like a corny song lyric." Izumi giggled. Her hair brushed against his neck as she smiled up at him.

_Freaking cute_. _And warm._

"Ha…you think? Maybe I should become a singer-songwriter when I grow up," he said.

"Don't get too ahead of yourself there," she said.

"What? You could be my number one fan!"

"Thanks but no thanks, Takuya. I listen to good music. Good music involves good singers."

Takuya made a face at that. _Bubble-gum pop is good music?_

Instead, Takuya proudly declared, "Then you're in luck, because I'm naturally good at everything."

* * *

"NO WAY! Somebody took a PICTURE of this??"

"Of what?" Izumi, lying belly-side-up on the bed behind Takuya, asked innocently, but truth be told, she had a feeling that she already knew what the picture was.

"Of…this…this…_this…!_" Takuya, gesturing wildly at the photo and blushing madly, couldn't find the word adequate enough to describe the scene in front of him. In full public view, there he was – fifteen years old - looking utterly petrified like he had just seen a ghost; meanwhile, Izumi was kissing him. Actually, it is more appropriate to say that she was simply pressing her lips on his and closing her eyes – and it _looked_ like it, too. It was very awkward, and Takuya was horrified.

Izumi peeked and laughed when her suspicions were confirmed. Her heart jumped a little like it always did when she looked at the picture. "That was fun. You really haven't gotten over it yet?

"Of course I have!" he said indignantly. "I just…never realized how awkward we looked," he confessed. He scratched his head. "No wonder nobody forgot about it." Izumi laughed.

"And it didn't help that you sprinted away the moment we broke apart."

The brunette scowled. "Well I'm sorry I have feelings. It was embarrassing. You caught me by surprise and there were a ton of people there! It wasn't the most fun experience."

"Hmph. Was I really that bad?" Izumi smiled, hoping he would take it as a joke but Takuya didn't catch it.

"Err…"

Two years later, Takuya could still recall the odd feeling of his lips being crushed into a door — a strawberry-tasting door, but a door nonetheless — so he decided to be honest.

"…I guess."

Izumi didn't know why she immediately felt offended. "Well, that's because," she began, pointing her finger right in his face, "_You_ weren't moving at all! It takes two to tango." Takuya stared at her for a moment, then grinned nervously.

"That was…a weird thing to say."

"_Si. _I know. But it's true. You sucked at it worse than me!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Uh, _yeah_."

"Oh yeah!?"

"YEAH!"

"OH YEAH!?"

"YEAH!"

"OH YEAH?!"

"YEAH!!"

"OH YEAH?!"

Before the last "yeah" completely left his mouth, Takuya's shirt collar was pulled forward and jerked down. He lost control of his body as he fell over…right onto Izumi's lips. The large scrapbook slid out of his lap and landed with a thick-sounding thud, and Izumi was gripping his collar so tightly his neck complained, but he was too stunned to notice.

God, he had been wrong. She was the total _opposite_ of a door.

He closed his eyes and somewhere in the back of his mind where what little logic he had left was present, he wondered if she wanted him to kiss her back. The kiss ended as suddenly as it had begun when Izumi roughly pushed him away. Their lips made a "smack" sound as they pulled apart. Dazed, he rubbed his now-aching neck.

"Eh…you still suck." Izumi said lightly, but inside, her heart was doing a frantic dance against her rib cage. _What the hell just came over me?_

In response, Takuya kissed her. _French-kissed_ her. This time, it was Izumi's turn to be shocked stiff. He totally gave into it, leaning so far over that his chest pressed against hers, and he couldn't help smiling at her erratic heartbeat (Like his wasn't acting the same way). After what _seemed _like a short amount of time – Takuya certainly wasn't keeping track – she began to reciprocate, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer. Thank the gods he had brushed his teeth.

After a minute or two, Takuya broke the kiss gently and pulled himself up into a balanced sitting position. Izumi's blank emerald eyes blinked up at him as he licked his lips experimentally. _Still strawberry._ There was a long pause; nobody moved, and then:

"Ok, I take back what I—" Izumi said.

"Good job, you're not that b—" he said simultaneously.

They caught each others eyes and smiled shyly before looking away. Takuya straightened his wrinkled shirt and Izumi twirled a lock of hair around her finger, each of them waiting for the other to go first.

"Thanks for the present. I actually, uh, liked it, it-it was good," Takuya said while looking down at his fidgeting hands. He mentally kicked himself for sounding so stupid.

"Oh. Um. Yeah. No problem. So…why'd you do that?" she mumbled. '_Please say it's because you like me, please, please._' As she thought this her heart, full of hope, hung suspended in her throat.

"Err…" Takuya blushed as his mind scrambled for a non-incriminating answer. "Be…cause…you said I wasn't good at it. I wanted to prove that I was. …Yeah." Izumi's heart wilted.

Wrong answer.

"Oh." she said sadly.

"Uh. Yeah..." Takuya sounded as awkward and disoriented as he felt. He cleared his throat and said, "I guess we both won."

There was a pregnant pause.

"Ok, I'm going to go now," she said. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.

He smirked. "Why? You think you lost?"

"No!" she shouted adamantly. "Because it's getting late."

"It's only…" Takuya glanced at the clock. "…9 AM!"

"I don't feel well…" she muttered.

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Are you lying to me?"

"No! Why would I lie?"

"I don't know. But you're touching your left ear and you always touch your left ear when you lie," he said smugly. Mortified, she removed her hand from her ear. "That and 'its getting late' was the lamest excuse I've ever heard. You're the worst liar I've ever met, you're worse than Kouichi! Now get back over here, sit down, and tell me what I did this time."

Izumi wiped her eyes and instantly regretted it. Damn it, she hadn't cried twice in one day for years, and all of a sudden she was tearing up twice in an hour. What was wrong with her? "I don't want to take up your entire birthday. You should also spend it with your family. And the others."

"I don't mind," he said sincerely. "You_ are_ practically family. That has to count for something," he assured her. _Not _what Izumi wanted to hear. Her intentions had never been to be just a sister to him.

"I'm sorry, since it's your birthday and all. But I want to go home," she said.

Takuya was completely confused. "Okay. If you're sure," he said, "Then at least let me walk you home."

"No, you should stay. I can get there by myself."

But Takuya, being Takuya, stubbornly _insisted_ and didn't let up until she snapped at him in rapid Italian, and everybody knows that if Izumi is speaking in full-on Italian, then a) she is very ticked off and b) half the words that are coming out of her mouth are cuss words. For a moment he contemplated pulling out the "but it's my birthday" excuse but it would be very selfish and a little mean for him to do so.

"Well let me at least show you to the door." he grumbled. As Takuya followed her out of her room and down the stairs, his mind was in bedlam. What the hell was going on? First he had kissed her…yeah, she had kissed him first, but it was because he challenged her, right?

'Wrong,' his subconscious rebutted.

_Shut up,_ Takuya told himself. _Great. Now I'm talking to myself._

'It would be even better if you listened to me,' said his subconscious.

_SHUT. UP._

And now she was leaving so suddenly. He knew her reason for leaving was total bullshit, since she could have stayed for lunch, or he could have easily called up the others and invited them over for an impromptu revel.

The house was silent except for Shinya watching TV on the other side of the house. Mr. Kanbara was in the basement working, and Mrs. Kanbara had gone shopping, probably for his annual birthday dinner.

"I really liked your present, you know," Takuya offered, as he opened the front door. Izumi stepped out onto the stone porch, smiling to herself. "Seriously, it's probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me," he said earnestly.

"Really? Well, you're welcome." She turned to him and shrugged. "It was fun to make."

Takuya nodded and put his hands in his pockets. "So, are we cool?" he asked. He leaned against the doorframe. Izumi looked back at Takuya with her eyes wide like plates and her fingers crossed tightly behind her back.

"Of course." Not.

"Good, because you — I mean, I think –" Milk-chocolate eyes met the emerald ones. He lost his nerve, blushing and looking at his feet as he scratched his head. "…Ah, never mind. Seeya, Izumi."

* * *

**Dio** - God  
**Si **- Yes (just like spanish)**  
**

**"THEY DIDNT GET TOGETHER IN THE END WTF?": **sorry there were several alternate endings. all of them sucked. my beta reader and i agreed this one sucked the least hahaha. my BR is so mean to me...

**"Who are The Little 3?"**: The Chosen's nick name for Tomoki Himi, Maya Hitsuji, Shinya Kanbara. Maya is one of my OC characters. I plan to write about the Little 3 eventually.

**"What's with the JP bashing?": **SORRY, I actually like JP, he was the most well rounded char by the end of frontier IMO, but he just fits well as the scapegoat..

**"Why is Izumi 17 already?": **In episode 2 of the anime when Takuya & Izumi are arguing (AKA Izumi was flirting with him and Takuya was too immature to realize it OTL ("OTL" is a guy hitting his head on the floor. )) Takuya said he was born in August and Izumi said she was born 3 months before him in May. Hm, those months really suit them don't you think? Since august is all about the heat and may is nice and calming like the wind.

**"What the was the point of May Fukuwara?":** A random OC who I stuck in there just in case I feel like continuing this later. then I'll have something to work off of.

ok peace, x's, and o's  
& review if you liked this...i like constructive crit!


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